Season highlights: After graduating five senior starters, Gardens coach Randy Jackson was looking for one of his new seniors to take up the leadership role in their absence. When the season was halfway through and no one had stepped up, Hayden took it upon herself to lead. The Gators would go on to win their final 10 games and repeated as Class 6A state champs.

Athlete's quote: "I was actually really surprised [I was Player of the Year]. I just wanted to do as well hitting as I did last year. Coach Randy had high expectations for me to keep that up and I feel like I did that…But we had so many good players, it wasn't just one or two girls doing well on the team, it was everybody."